Hey y’all! Happy Tuesday! Today is the next to the last post in Where Homes Converge! Next week is the grand finale post, which I’ve been working on all summer. (!!!) After that, we’ll have a post with some resources if you want to study yearning more, and then it’ll be back to more sporadic posting as I survive college, lol. Thank you so much for reading!
Sometimes I wonder about Beauty. Why are things beautiful? What makes us see beauty in them? They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I don’t think this is always the case. We can all look at an exquisite sunset or the magnificence of a lion or a perfect tree and agree that it is beautiful (unless we are being extremely contrary). So it appears that every human has a standard for beauty. But where does this standard come from?
The last words of Socrates are recorded by the philosopher Plato in a philosophical argument entitled “Phaedo,” which I have been reading for school. Towards the end, Socrates suggests that, “nothing else makes [a thing] beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned… but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful” (Phaedo, emphasis mine).
Yes, I know. This is BC philosophy, and the wording takes some getting used to. And these are pagan philosophers who believed some pretty wacky things and maintained pretty immoral lifestyles. But that doesn’t mean their words can’t hold some truth.
Basically what Socrates is saying is that all beauty is a reflection of true Beauty. Psalm 50:2 proves that GOD is true Beauty, saying, “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.”
So. All beautiful things reflect the Beauty of God. All beautiful things should point us toward heaven. Toward the day when we will see perfect Beauty made manifest as we enter Zion.
Even the ugly and beautiful things mixed can remind us of our Creator’s beauty. An exquisite autumn leaf (I’m holding out– fall’s comin’, y’all) marred by a bad spot or curled and crinkly at the edges reminds us that God’s Beauty lasts forever. The color of blood is a beautiful crimson brightness, and though it reminds us of death, it also points us to the blood that was spilled by Beauty Himself. A mirror cracked and fractured across, distorting its image, reminds us that though now we see the beauty of this world in a mirror dimly, someday it will shine forth in Christ with clarity, in glory, face to face.
I encourage you to get outside! Look at things closely. The front lawn at my college is riddled with enormous oak trees. I could stare at them for hours. They remind me that God’s Beauty is big. There’s a tree right in front of my window. (Her name is Gloria.) Last night I watched raindrops slide from leaf to leaf and considered how detailed Beauty is. There’s a Weeping Willow outside the window in my favorite part of the library (her name is Tillie), and she reminds me that while beauty often seems bright and happy, it can also be sad. It can yearn.
Let beauty make you yearn for Christ’s return, when all the ugliness of the world will forever disappear. When we will behold His beauty face to face.
All images my own